Chinese provinces invest heavily on blockchain technology development

By Ma Jingjing Source:Global Times Published: 2020/5/10 17:41:52

People walk by a sign of Blockchain Summit during the Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2019 in June. Photo: IC

Southwest China's Guizhou Province released a guideline Saturday on promoting blockchain application and technology development, aiming to build two or three blockchain industrial zones in the province by 2022 that nurtures at least 100 blockchain ventures.

The province's move came after a handful of other cities including Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province and Ganzhou in East China's Jiangxi Province that have revealed similar plans to make the technology play a bigger role in developing local economies.

According to the guideline posted on the Guizhou government website, the province will focus on the application of blockchain technology in projects related to people's livelihood improvement and smart city construction, with 23 special blockchain-based projects to be launched.

Jiang Jiang, CEO of blockchain firm Chengdu iinda, told the Global Times Sunday that he felt increasing government support for blockchain startups to develop technologies assisting elderly care, poverty alleviation and other service sectors throughout the country.

There will be rising opportunities to apply blockchain innovations in the real economy after the end of the onslaught of the novel coronavirus, as the technology has been listed as "new infrastructure" in April, Jiang said.

Beijing municipal government has worked out policies to support its privately-owned enterprises making use of new technologies like blockchain and 5G in their primary experiments, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday.

"A country's economic progress is closely related to analytical big data use, and blockchain technology will help enhance the data's reliability and quality. In this regard, China is taking the lead to develop blockchain and will contribute to the reshaping of the global economy," Liu Gang, director of the Nankai Institute of Economics, who is also chief economist at the Chinese Institute of New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Strategies, told the Global Times.

Guangzhou issued a guideline on Wednesday aimed to inspire innovation breakthroughs in underlying core technologies and to nurture two to three blockchain leading ventures.

Compared with other countries and regions, Jiang said China's blockchain technology development runs on a par with that of the US. "But the US government is somehow less motivated to accelerate application of blockchain technology," he said, noting that his company recently developed a blockchain-based advertising system for a US client.

China takes the lead in blockchain application, with large-scale commercialization is expected in three to five years, Jiang said, noting that currently blockchain technology remains in the early development stage.